Giants GM Brian Sabean laid out his thoughts for the winter meetings and had some newsy things to say.

Make sure to check the Mercury News story in tomorrow’s editions, but for now, some quick news points:

–Sabean said he doesn’t “see us acquiring an outfielder.” That would appear to rule out Manny Ramirez. Fred Lewis is coming along nicely after bunion surgery and getting fitted for special Nike shoes. He’s expected to be the starting left fielder.

–The Giants haven’t made an offer to CC Sabathia or Mark Teixeira, and without getting into specifics on either player, Sabean downplayed the Giants’ participation.

Brian Sabean pulled off another good move by signing righthanded reliever Bobby Howry to a one year $2.75 million dollar deal. I like three things about this deal.

1) It’s a one year deal. There’s very little risk for the Giants. Yes, Howry had his worst year last year, but the four years before that he had ERA’s of 2.74, 2.47, 3.17 and 3.32. If that’s the Howry we signed, it was a steal.

2) Howry throws strikes. Even in his worst year he had a K/BB ratio of 4.5 to 1, which is outstanding.

3) Since the Cubs didn’t offer Howry arbitration the Giants don’t lose a draft pick, which would have happened had they signed Juan Cruz, who is a Type A free agent.

Howry is an experienced reliever who’s had a lot of success in the Major Leagues. For a small investment in money and especially time, the Giants have gone a long way towards shoring up a HUGE weakness.

Wilson, Romo, Hinshaw, Affeldt, Howry. With those five around for the whole season, the Giants could easily show a ten game improvement just with their bullpen upgrades. Continue Reading →

On the Bobby Howry conference call, Giants GM Brian Sabean said he hoped to finish a deal with a free agent infielder (presumably Edgar Renteria or Rafael Furcal) later this week.

Sabean gave a foggy answer when asked if the Giants were in the free- agent market for starting pitchers. When asked directly if CC Sabathia was in play, he declined comment, saying the call should be focused on Howry.

The Giants continued to spend fearlessly in a tight and worrisome market, agreeing to terms on a one-year deal with free-agent right-hander Bobby Howry.

Terms were not immediately available, but Howry was expected to command less than the two-year, $8 million contract that left-hander Jeremy Affeldt received last month. It’s obviously become a buyer’s market out there.

Now that the Giants have addressed their bullpen by acquiring two veterans to set up Brian Wilson, they’ll move on to filling their vacancy at shortstop. We’ll see if Edgar Renteria is motivated to do business quickly or if he’ll wait for Rafael Furcal to sign first. If Furcal has trouble getting that fourth year he’s seeking, the Giants would be in play for him as well.

We knew right-hander Bobby Howry would be a person of interest this winter, and my colleague Chris Haft had a “good get” with his story today on MLB.com. Haft communicated with Howry’s agent, who indicated talks with the Giants had heated up after the Chicago White Sox Cubs declined to offer him arbitration Monday.

(Another hat tip to the always insightful El Lefty Malo, who reasoned that Howry would become the Giants’ next target before Haft’s story hit the Web.)

C.C. Sabathia is attending the Golden State Warriors game tonight in Oakland, my colleague Tim Kawakami confirmed to me.

Could mean something, could mean nothing. Sabathia is from nearby Vallejo, you know. I’m trying to determine if he’s met with Giants officials or if something is scheduled. Will update if I’m able to find anything out.

SMALL UPDATE: The Giants officially declined to offer arbitration to Omar Vizquel or Rich Aurilia. No great shock there.

The Detroit Tigers announced today that they will not offer arbitration to Edgar Renteria, making the free-agent shortstop all the more attractive to Giants officials.

The Giants would have sacrificed a draft choice, likely their second-round pick, if they had signed Renteria last month. But the Tigers were only eligible for draft compensation if they had offered arbitration to Renteria by tonight’s deadline, and they deemed the risk too great that he’d accept the offer — especially after they already bought out his option year for $3 million.

Bottom line: the Giants could sign Renteria tomorrow and it wouldn’t cost them a pick. It’s just another reason these two parties appear to be gravitating toward each other.